The Chasms

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Climb the centre of the face of Eiger Buttress. Bold and serious climbing up a steepening slab of friable rock with no gear good enough to take body weight. Eeek! Low in the grade? This was terrifying! I tried, like an idiot, to on-sight the F.A. of this on my first day out. I got about halfway up, felt about E6 6a, removing loose rock aplenty with both hands and feet as I went! I got to a reasonable rest position and realised that the slab steepened up above and I had no gear worth hanging a coat on. The option was press on and get super-commited on steepening ground of poor rock, or call for a rope. Not that difficult a choice really. After a rope was dropped and I clipped in I continued up the face, I didn't fall off or weight the rope at any point. So should I have stayed on the sharp end? Not a chance, it was scary enough on a top-rope thank-you very much. I walked away thinking it was unjustifiable as a climb…

On the next day out I wanted to try a steep face round the corner but ti rapidly became apparent that the cleaning job would take me the rest of the day so I binned it off and instead dropped a rope down the line of Hemlock for a cheeky shunt. Again I didn't fall off and this time I didn't manage to remove as many holds. twice up it, no falls? Hmmm, I went off and had a ponder for an hour or so then popped back and solo'ed it...

...properly getting the fear. I didn't do much more climbing after this.

References

[1] https://nikjennings.blogspot.com/2013/06/repetition-and-relocation.html